Shifting Sands of an Hourglass Sea
by Rhetorical irony
Summary: Second chances hardly spell salvation the way saints would have people believe they do. False hope lies buried under withering blossoms; but even an artificial body running on borrowed time can dream.


Hi :D Though this isn't exactly my first story on Fanfiction, it's been around two years since I wrote anything _fiction_, so I may be a little rusty (sadly)... /: Soooo I would really appreciate any feedback I can get... but no flames please :) And here's the first chapter of a series of oneshots for our very dear Kanda, because he's such awesome practice material :P

* * *

Life is hard, and karma is a bitch.

Prod and push at their boundaries and they will snap back with twice the force, slapping you upside down and leaving behind raw, if invisible, marks staining your insides and plunging your soul closer to Hell.

So this was what it meant to be alive.

Kanda was given little by way of life, and expected even less. Living in the Order was all about following through with brainless motions. Waking up at the crack of dawn, downing his usual platter of soba, training until the pain of breathing threatens to crack his lungs open. That would be followed by showering, meditation, death glares for anyone who strays too close. Mocking stabs at the baka usagi who never seemed to understand the meaning of personal space. Soba for lunch and dinner. Waiting for any missions that would take him away from this wretched place which held no meaning to him, but was his entire existence. Polishing Mugen until the blade shone under the scant light which filtered weakly past the cracked window into his room. Counting the number of petals left on the lotus in the hourglass, a physical manifestation of the borrowed life that was forced onto his corpse.

Rinse and repeat.

Sometimes he wonders if there is meaning to anything he does. From the moment he was born, to his death and rebirth, for the first time and every time after that – talk about karma, he wasn't even allowed to die in peace – he had been marked for suffering. His past was drenched with its touch, his hands mired in the rich red of his best friend's blood – he was responsible for Alma's death, and for that he would be condemned to eternity in the depths of Hell. He'd readily accepted that.

So when karma decided to deposit the beansprout on his proverbial doorstep, he reckoned that it was a _sign_, that he was to take his first step towards eternity, a downward spiral. But that didn't mean that he was going to drag anyone down with him to share in his plight. Misery loved company, but he had his pride to think of, and he'd be damned – he _was_ already, but that wasn't the main point – if anyone were there to witness his sorry state. He had never let anyone in close enough for that to happen, and he wasn't about to start now.

"Nice to meet you", the beansprout had said, with that obtuse smile that failed to reach his muted silver eyes. _Like fuck._ There was no way in hell he was touching that hand, lest karma decides to deliver a swift foot up his ass and turn the beansprout into deadweight on his heels.

"I'm not shaking hands with a cursed one like you," he snapped.

Frost and fire clashed in front of the gates of the Black Order, igniting a spark within him which he thought had been snuffed out ages ago. It was hot and uncomfortable and made him all sorts of wary and prickly, but with it came dangerous thrill. Masochist he was, he welcomed the pain with open arms.

Karma could bring it all on for all he cared; this time, he was going to fight back.

* * *

It almost annoyed him, how easily the akuma - flesh and blood demons with real intent to kill - fell into sheets and dust clouds before his katana, when he couldn't even down the demons in his own head. Voices of people he had never seen before in his entire life drifted in and out of his subconscious alongside a promise to wait forever, and the persistent, annoying pink of lotus blossoms which flooded his vision. The flickering shadow of that obscured face in the lotus field drowned in blood.

He swore to himself, time and time again, that he would find that hidden person of the shadows, just so that he could make it all disappear. All the confusion and disorientation, stupid blossoms which never wilted. He'd tried to crush them before, seeing as how they're always underfoot all over and anyhow and everywhere but obviously it didn't work. He'd expected it though. Illusions never fell that easily.

Because he figured that having purpose would make living just a little easier, Kanda decided he needed a personal life mission. Even if it meant spending whatever time he had left of his borrowed life searching for a person whose face he'd never even seen before. It wasn't much, but it was sufficiently challenging at the very least. A sorry excuse, if anything.

Kanda was a simple man, and he had simple reasons for the way he did things. He ate soba for all three meals every day: He hated almost everything else, especially sweet foods. He fought the beansprout at every turn with everything he had: He hated the insistent critter for hoping and smiling, for lying through his teeth all the damned time.

He kept his distance from humans: because they were all incorrigibly stupid. How could they not see what he saw every time he looked into a mirror? Baleful eyes of unholy blue, writhing shadows in those depths which spoke of frightful horrors best left hidden. He wasn't intelligent – that was the usagi's forte – but even he knew that he was screwed up beyond belief when all he could see were damned pink blossoms all around the floor and the walls and the people, tauntingly vibrant in a place which stank of corpses and pain and blood.

No matter what he tried, nothing dispelled the visions, or the voices or the shadows, and he was tired of being an illusionist. He was weak, no matter how much he pushed and trained, to hell with what everyone else thought. It wasn't even as if he was a good actor – he couldn't be bothered to spare the effort. Humans were simply blind and oblivious. He hated idiocy, which seemed to be the dominant currency in society, but even more so, hypocrisy. Which meant that _he_ deserved stabs with Mugen, for looking down on everyone else when he himself deserved the most of that hatred.

He never expected, after all that torment, years after he'd resigned himself to living with the demons in his head, to finally find a salve for his wounds. Granted, it was a temporary fix – molten silver eyes flashing with fierce fire which burnt themselves into his retina before melting away all the illusions, keeping them at bay – since the respite he would get fades away just as fast as it came whenever the baka moyashi moves out of his line of sight, but it was more than Kanda had ever expected. He'd take whatever he could get.

Which explained why he was beyond pissed off when he fought his way back to consciousness after that accursed Level Two almost sliced him into half beneath the god-forsaken ghost town, only to find the irrational beansprout getting in his face with zero sense of self-preservation.

"This isn't a pillow for a sick man! It's the uniform of an Exorcist!" _Do you have no pride for what you're doing? Do you even _know _what you're doing?_

"Sacrifices are inevitable, rookie." He was living testament of that.

He flung the beansprout's stupid coat back at him in contempt and promptly lashed out, digging proverbial claws into his skin in an attempt to shake some much needed sense into the airhead. He admitted that his extreme reaction was partly borne of selfishness; he wasn't ready to give up the embers the stupid beansprout rekindled from the ashes of that fire which he thought had been burnt out of him a lifetime ago. He wasn't ready to lose the fistfights, the verbal sparring, heated glares promising blood and hellfury which tingled like electricity dancing across his skin. Kanda knew what death felt like, multiple times over, its stone cold touch wrapping around his skin and choking the life out of his lungs with an all-consuming, vice-like grip, and this wasn't it.

He wanted to _live_ again, to feel the force of life skittering across his skin, slowly melting the ice in his veins, dappling light sunkissed touches across the length of his face and his hair. He hadn't lived for a long time, even if he _was _alive and for all intents and purposes, fully functional.

"If I sacrifice myself for them, will that sate you?" _The fuck did that come from?!_

"You feel sorry for them, so you're sacrificing yourself for them?! Don't you have any reason to live?!"

Stupid, fucking Beansprout with a martyr complex.

Anger only surged up his meter as Kanda watched the beansprout launch himself at the Level Two bastard when his weapon wasn't even ready. It was just like the beansprout to drive him up the wall with all his idiotic, misguided attempts at bravery. Sometimes he really wonders what he saw in the beansprout, especially when the latter folded over while suffering from a rebound, forcing him to step in so that the dishonourable bastard wouldn't strike the moyashi down right where he stood. Then he remembers how alike they were, and that saving him was like a shot at redemption; saving cursed souls was his job after all.

So, just for the record, there was no altruism behind his actions; he saved the moyashi for all aforementioned selfish reasons. Plus it meant that the damned beansprout owes him now, and that feels strangely satisfying.

* * *

"Come on Yuu-chan! We all need some sunshine in our lives!" The rabbit flailed dramatically, draping one arm across his shoulders, wide grin firmly in place.

"I said no. Baka Usagi. And hands off before I chop you into so many strips for rabbit stew with Mugen," he growled threateningly.

"But you only ever eat soba! Does that mean that you don't really hate everything else?" Lavi hopped out of range of his rapidly swinging blade, his voice annoyingly cheerful and grin unwaveringly bright.

"Shut the fuck up."

"Kanda!" Lenalee huffed, one hand placed firmly onto his arm to restrain him, "we've already shed enough blood for a day, don't you think?"

Lenalee was a girl, and honour and etiquette dictated that he treat a girl with respect. Which meant that he couldn't just slap her hand away and tell her to screw with someone else. He snarled, and with one last futile swipe at the usagi, reluctantly sheathed his katana.

"What I really need is a bath, and a lot of distance from these idiots here," he jabbed a finger in the beansprout's general direction.

"Hey! I'm not involved in this, remember?" Vague irritation flashed past those shaded mercurial eyes.

"Your very existence is an annoying involvement," he snorted.

The moyashi hissed, riled now, "So says the one who's a complete waste of space."

"No more so than the resident cursed freak with white hair," he smirked, and folded his arms across his chest.

"I'll take white hair over your luscious locks any day, girly-man."

"We'll see about that, once I chop it all off your old man head."

"Bring it. Not that it'll ever happen, because _I'll shave you bald first_."

"CUT IT OUT," Lenalee shouted, stepping in between the two of them, "Allen! You should know better than to let him goad you into this."

"Not when he's an insufferable bastard," the beansprout protested, before turning to glower at him once more.

"Aww, Yuu-chan! We all know you're secretly a fountain of love and care for our dear Moyashi," the rabbit sang in a tone of voice which reminded him of nails being dragged down a fucking chalkboard, in blatant ignorance of the beansprout's curses and spluttered protests, "and besides, it's your birthday! That's a cause for celebration! With balloons and a lovely picnic!"

"You're fucking delusional."

Lenalee sighed and let go of the beansprout, only to manhandle him again, this time dragging him behind her towards the general direction of town, "Let it go, Kanda. It'll be fun, you'll see. After that dreadful mission, what we all need is to unwind a little. Please?"

"Tch."

And so he was forced to participate in that ridiculous food shopping trip, after which came the picnic under the tree shade in the garden within the Black Order compounds. It would have been a complete waste of time, except for the fact that he got in good practice time with Mugen by slashing experimentally at the suicidal rabbit, and many chances to needle the beansprout, which was always a welcome bonus.

* * *

Meditation was the best remedy for anxiety and anger, the latter which never seemed to leave him... but that's only when it _works_. Some days Kanda simply finds himself in a funk which refuses to allow him to sink into that state of peace and quiet, and that's when the stupid and frivolous thoughts start to crowd in.

Whenever Kanda looks at the stupid beansprout, he feels a sense of déjà vu. It's like staring at his own reflection, with the same dead eyes desperately holding back shadows of the past, revelling in control they only wished they had. He wondered why no one else seemed to see just how alike they are. Like asymmetric halves of a whole, they'd fold into each other seamlessly along dysfunctional faults born from the cracking of that very thin veneer they'd spread over themselves to cover whatever they could of their deep-seated shame.

It was easy to read the moyashi; the consummate cheater and con artist extraordinaire wore a habitual mask of false gentleman and impeccable manners as someone who's threatening to fall apart at the seams. He's good, maybe even good enough to fool himself sometimes, but Kanda's above that sort of thing. He would know; the beansprout's damned too, with how the past has a way of catching up with shit, and how it would eventually pull them both down into suffocating, inescapable pits of filth.

Though perhaps the beansprout was less delusional than he gave him credit for, because he never seemed to bother with his mask when it came to Kanda. It was as though he knew the man had already seen through his pretty façade to the ugly beneath. Which was good, because Kanda pulled no punches, and more importantly, had no patience for fools.

Lenalee was a different kind of simple; somehow the little girl tied to the bedpost never really grew up. She continues to cling to her unstable world of puzzle pieces of fleeting faces and _home_ and _nakama_; but really she's the only one who's been in the Order nearly as long as Kanda had. And as much as she tries to sugar-coat the truth and shove it to the back of her head, she knows what the Order's truly like, with all the less than moral experiments they sanctioned, of which his very existence was a prime example. She knows, even if acceptance and reconciliation is still a ways off. He's just a little grateful for what little feelings of camaraderie that brings him, and he relished in the feeling of being irrevocably _right_, that all of them in this hypocritical place were hell bound, Beansprout be damned.

Lavi though, was harder to read; that rabbit was slippery, with his death wishes and flippant smiles. A complete contrast to his carefully guarded Bookman Junior persona, all nonchalance and keen observation skills and secrets, though secrets which seeped through his slimy exterior were secrets which would never see the light of day. Kanda trusts Lavi, somewhat, but he's wary of Bookman Junior. Much as the rabbit threatens to make him blow a fuse all the time, he was reliable. Bookman Junior was not, especially considering his trade with words, armed with barbs which would dig into people's sensitive spots and _hold_, until they spurted secrets which could be pieced together for "recordings of the hidden side of history".

Fists, on the other hand, were honest in their strength, and straightforward in their manner; never let it be said that Kanda wasn't an honourable opponent. The rabbit could handle the oily things – he always did, especially when they were paired together for a mission (usually with a distinctly Lavi flourish, all pomp and dramatic flair) – because Kanda certainly wasn't going to. And as long as he _stayed the fuck away from him_, Kanda didn't give two hoots about how the baka usagi flounced around with that saccharine-sweet smile and needle-sharp green eye.

Until, of course, he got in his face with his annoying calls of "Yuu-chan!", which would then prompt him to leap across tables and slice at him with Mugen. He rather thought that rabbit strips would be a welcome condiment for his soba.

* * *

Kanda was as antisocial as anyone could possibly get, and he knows it well. He even places some degree of pride on his ability to isolate himself from the masses, with a few annoying exceptions.

Which was why it really disturbed him when he was more than a little bothered by seeing Daisya's body, the obscene display chained to that lamp post from which he hung facedown. He'd never liked people, but he held no particular dislike for the Turkish. He just didn't expect to feel guilt and responsibility, especially for not paying closer attention to his golem when it was spitting out Daisya's crackling last words and Tyki Mikk's taunts, even if he _was_ fighting and couldn't afford any lapses in attention.

Daisya, like Lavi, had a perpetual death wish, with his reckless demeanour and annoying tendency to get in his face. But he also held little expectations for life, which was why he would go out of his way to seize opportunities for whatever little fun he could scrounge together. Being an exorcist was almost akin to signing one's own death warrant; few survived past months after initiation into the Order.

Kanda held grudging respect towards Daisya for recognising that fact, and for the determination he did not have, to make as much of his numbered days as he could before hopefully dying a glorious death in battle.

It was sobering then, to be there to witness his end; not all of them would even get to die courageously in battle, while downing their enemies and carving important marks into that stupid hidden side of history which the rabbit has dedicated his life to recording. Many of them were going to end up as fodder for collateral damage.

Stupid, slimy _emotions_. They weren't worth the trouble it would take to untangle them, or perhaps it was just too much for his socially dysfunctional self. _He_ shouldn't be expected to know how to deal with them, when even Theodore, who spends all his time frolicking with the tricky things, seemed more than a little disoriented by their sudden onslaught.

* * *

Sadly, Kanda must have been less than impenetrable as he had thought he'd conditioned himself to become, because he actually _cared_ enough about the silly human beings to send them ahead of him with a swift boot to their asses.

"You all, get moving. I'll handle this guy," Kanda snapped, narrowed eyes trained on the Noah in that room with the fancy clouds and rainbows. Of all ridiculous things.

"Right! I'll stay behind with you, Kanda!"

_Like fuck he was going to let the beansprout slow him down_.

"I'll be damned if I get stuck here with you."

"Kanda!"

"I said I'll handle him. Get out of my sight. Or would you rather I start by slicing you all in half?"

Kanda made good on his promise, and he watched as the idiots hastily retreated after a bout with his First Illusion attack. Emotions be damned; he was mildly disgusted by the abstract _relief _he felt.

He didn't think he would die, at least not permanently, because fact was, he _couldn't_. Not until the lotus in the hourglass lost all of its petals, and there were many left to go.

He wasn't going to die by the hands of some stupid Noah either, the latter being twice as dense as the beansprout. Not when he had a person to find. He wasn't a goddamned quitter, and he wasn't about to die still haunted by illusions and shadows; he figured that the least he owed himself was some peace of mind as he died.

_Noahs are immortal, my ass. Humans all die eventually… as long as they remain human._

It's stupid how much he'd allowed the idiots to close in on him, to infect him with senseless optimism that he'd somehow make it off the damned Ark, relatively alive and in one piece. He's horrified at how, as he knelt amidst the debris, his legs dead and his arms numb and the shattered Mugen a dead weight in his hands, his last thoughts drifted to Komui back at Headquarters, the baka usagi, Lenalee, the punk Beansprout. The promise he should never have made to them to play catch up, when he should have known enough to expect that he wouldn't make it out of hell alive. To think that he'd allowed the stupid Noah to bring him down so low.

_They're going to be pissed at me_, he thought, as reality crashed down around him.

At least he was going to die honourably in battle.

* * *

Though perhaps God had a shred of compassion somewhere within him after all, if the fact that he _did_ eventually make it off the Ark relatively unscathed compared to some of the others was any indication.

Or maybe God just wasn't done screwing with him yet, and He wasn't ready to liberate him without making his life as fucked up as possible. Kanda had a niggling suspicion that it was the latter.

And then things turned to shit again, with the whole Player's Licence fiasco barely just preceding a visit from another one of those goddamned Noahs with a fucking Level Four in tow, the latter of which almost blasted them into the Earth's core.

Kanda hated it when he was right.

* * *

"Damn it, Beansprout, if you want to do this, then do it right," Kanda snarled, swinging Mugen with flawlessly fluid strokes, "or quit wasting my damn time!"

"Shut up, BaKanda," the beansprout retaliated, his movements sloppy, his sword-work leaving much to be desired.

"Like fuck I will. "Destroyer who saves" my ass. At the rate you're going, you're not going to be able to save anyone at all, you little dipshit," Kanda scoffed, "Not with all the wasted moves and openings you're leaving."

Something he said must have jolted Beansprout to attention, because almost immediately, Kanda saw minute improvements. "Not everything is about strength, Beansprout. Sword fighting isn't about hacking at just every other shit as I'm sure you're accustomed to," Kanda threw out carelessly, parrying another poorly-executed stroke with practiced ease.

"The name's Allen, BaKanda! A-L-L-E-N, you lowbrow asshat," the moyashi delivered from between gritted teeth, but offered no further protest. Kanda knew that the beansprout knew he was right, and a ferocious grin spilled across his features as he broke their sword-locked positions, twisting suddenly to come at the beansprout from his side.

Moyashi was just a little slow at raising his oversized broadsword in defence, and the jarring blow sent him sliding across the dojo floor. With mindboggling speed, Kanda lunged, and pressed Mugen to his open throat.

The beansprout glared at him defiantly, before lowering his eyes in acknowledgement of his defeat.

"Meh, Yuu-chan, don't you think you're being a little too hard on our darling Moyashi?" the rabbit's voice drifted into the dojo just moments before he pranced in without preamble, startling the beansprout and mindfully ignoring the barely veiled warning in Kanda's eyes.

"Bounce off, Lavi," the beansprout snapped tiredly and with less heat than what he always gave to Kanda, "Kanda alone gives me enough grief, I don't need further input from you. Besides, wasn't Bookman looking for you?"

"Jiji's always looking for me," Lavi wailed, "it makes no difference how many times I respond to him. Even when all he has for me to do is to shift some books around the library." He rested his head on the beansprout's shoulder in mock despair. Kanda watched with carefully concealed amusement as the moyashi shook him off, before protesting when Lavi ran a hand through his hair and ruffled it teasingly.

"Oops, gotta go," Lavi straightened nervously and zipped away just as Bookman approached the dojo doors, looking significantly less than happy at having caught him in the act of slacking off.

Kanda huffed as he watched the beansprout sigh and run his fingers through his hair in an attempt to undo whatever damage Lavi wrought. As expected, the little idiot then turned back to him, silver eyes glittering with the steel of grit and determination.

"Ready?" The beansprout looked at him askance, that semi-mocking smile on his face, his masochistic streak showing through in tune to Kanda's with his heavy pants, bangs damp with sweat clinging to the contours of his sharp-lined face.

This time Kanda doesn't bother with a reply before launching himself forward, Mugen perfectly poised and at the ready. If this was what the beansprout wanted, then he would meet him point to point, step for step, neither giving nary an inch.

* * *

Drivelling lotus blossoms. Pink too bright which hurt his eyes. Dead. Dying. Broken. Sea of blood, red and sticky. _Alma._

Dead people weren't supposed to just come back to life after permeating his dreams and damning him to hell.

A face beneath the glass floor. Lotus blossoms scattered pink over the horror in his eyes, reflected over the grotesque display barely inches away from his own face.

_I'm happy. I thought I was the only one…_

_They said you're called Yuu._

He couldn't think couldn't move couldn't breathe –

_Who? Me? Er, I'm… They call me Alma._

His best friend who used to smile like the beansprout still did sometimes, looking at him with those dead, dead eyes flung wide open in stasis.

_No. he's dead. I killed him with my own hands so – _

"What's wrong? Aren't you happy to see Alma again?

"Perhaps… the woman who made you slit Alma into so many little pieces… Does she have anything to do with this?"

Karma was a bitch alright. And Kanda was perfectly done with taking demands from a God who could care less about his subjects being wielded as tools in the name of a "holy war".

* * *

He was truly an incompetent. Alma, who supposedly died by his hands, had actually been kept _alive,_ in limbo, left behind to deal with the Vatican's shit alone. Alma, who'd been the woman he'd been looking for, _his lover in a past life, _and suddenly the illusion he'd had of "life" and "purpose" splintered, becoming less of an excuse than it was an obligation.

But even as he crossed the entrance into the Ark – willingly this time, the irony – with Alma carefully cradled in his arms, smiling that smile and crying from eyes which were no longer dead, all he could feel was the heft of regret, regret belatedly suffusing through the corpse that was his vessel at the thought of molten silver bequeathed to unholy gold, pushed beneath its depths to never resurface.

It hurt.

Stupid Beansprout and his cardshark tendencies. He'd just gambled away his life so that Kanda could have a second chance at mortality, a second chance Kanda had never asked for and certainly didn't want.

He's had plenty enough of this mockery.

Kanda was independent, a fiercely free spirit who would fight tooth and nail to carve a place for himself if he had to, and he _did_, even if it was a place he hated with a passion. He wasn't used to relying on people to solve his problems, and he'd spent his life honing his skills just so that he could make sure that never came to pass. But still it did, and Kanda wondered where that left him.

"I'm sorry."

_Sorry. Yeah._

"Hnn."

"Yuu..."

"Don't speak anymore."

"Just watch... No cheating... with... your Innocence."

"I know."

_Things have changed. Though if I remember correctly, you never did like changes._

_Because they're rarely for the better._

_I... still love you though._

_...Yeah._

Petals. Rain. A lotus pond under a circular slice of blue sky. All the spoken and the unspoken words. Kanda felt Alma's heartbeat pulse to a stop beneath his stilled fingers, but continued to hold the body close even as it cooled and the blood congealed on his arms. In his mind's eye, he saw a cloaked figure stepping away, hand in hand with his best friend, her face still covered, but Kanda supposed it didn't matter anymore. Not if he wanted the past to stay dead and buried, now that he knew the truth and had all he'd ever expected to get with his lot in life, and then some.

A second chance. He wasn't a quick learner, but given enough time, perhaps he would be able to bash it into his own skull hard enough to make it mean something.

* * *

Kanda was known for being many things. Stuck-up was one. Callous and ungrateful was another.

But contrary to popular belief, he wasn't without a heart. He made exceptions, however little, when he was pushed to. And deliberately, forcefully shoving the rest of the world out of the little bubble of existence he'd reluctantly claimed as his own space was different from being an unfeeling bastard. Not that anyone else would be able to tell much of a difference between the two. It wasn't his fault if he was an asshole to people who were gluttons for punishment though. Lenalee, Rabbit, the beansprout, all of them seemed to have taken that in stride. Which was a good thing, because they were in for the long haul.

Kanda had returned with the sole purpose of retrieving Mugen. But with the way life worked, _of course_ things were never going to be so straightforward for him.

It had been a long time since he'd last seen the person on the sickbed, truly _looked_ at him. He was a sunken old man now, older than Kanda had ever remembered him looking. Confessions of regret spilled from his lips like soft petals floating in the wind, and Kanda wondered what business he had listening to Zu Mei Chang repenting his sins when he too was damned, even if the latter had been the one to put him in his position. He wasn't a damned pastor. Alma was the one who should be standing here, receiving this apology in his stead. He hadn't even been half the person Alma had been.

Then he understood that it was the guilt he'd carried with him all these years which he wanted heard. He would know; Old man might have been the one to stick his brain into this body, but he wasn't the only one who'd sinned. At least Kanda had him to thank for Mugen, and a little more time away from serving eternity permanently in hell.

Brilliant pink crowded his vision again, invading the bed sheets, crumpling the pillows and spilling across carpets on the floor.

_They're illusory blossoms, Kanda. You can't tell anyone... You can't get caught._

For the first time in the nine years he'd spent in their midst, he wondered if they might actually mean something beyond the obvious inconvenience they brought.

_A woman standing in the field under a circle of sky. Slender finger arched upwards. A flower born from adversity, mud at its roots._

Kanda closed his fingers around the old man's own wrinkled ones and smiled, "Well, that means you're going to Hell too."

Though that meant little, if anything, at this point of time. Kanda could think of worse places to be.

_Rising straight to the heavens... It isn't an illusion, Kanda. You are the forceful lotus itself._

* * *

A hangover. Of all things. Though apparently it was part of being _normal_...

"Come on Kanda! It's new and improved!"

He needed a break from the pounding in his head, the lead in his legs and the too bright colours hurting his half-lidded eyes. But that didn't mean he was going to entrust his life to the dubious inventions of the science division. Not least since he was reduced to the height of a goddamned eight year old with his faculties intact.

"I'll die before I drink that."

The second time Kanda met the cursed beansprout, it was with layers and layers of paint and pretence stacked between them. Kanda wondered if that was what had ticked him off beyond comprehension at first sight, even if he hadn't consciously acknowledged the moyashi's presence: it was probably his own subconscious way of expressing distaste for the unwelcome change from the first time when masks were dropped in an instant and battle lines were drawn.

Rather than slicing him up as his instincts had been screaming at him to do, he made sure to strip the clown of his stupid mask, inch by little inch of paint ripped away without pity by force of will and an insatiable thirst for vengeance.

But that's what the beansprout had in coming for screwing with him. Kanda wouldn't apologise for any pain he might or might not have caused him, the ignorant bastard.

* * *

Kanda was so used to being harassed by the likes of Usagi and Lenalee; he'd never stopped to consider the fact that one day they wouldn't be able to be there to annoy him anymore. And now that they truly weren't, he felt... weird. Reality felt disjointed somehow, like an obscure itch he couldn't scratch. It annoyed him to no end.

But at least it was borne of a conscious decision on his part, because fuck the Vatican and their stupid rules, he was going to make the best of whatever control he'd gleaned from his time in self-imposed exile. At least he's finally managed to find the beansprout even if they'd had to trounce through half of England's sleazy bars and shady hotels to do it; he'd achieved his main motive for absconding with Johnny in the first place. He deserved every bit of self-validation he got.

Though the fact that they'd lost all their money while pursuing the beansprout still irritated him beyond comprehension. Tch.

_You really don't get it do you? Why would you throw away the freedom you'd worked so hard to get?!_

Then things were shot to hell again thanks to the reappearance of the Fourteenth, and for the first time in his life, Kanda wished he'd learnt somewhere along the way how to fix things, fragile things which had no business being broken.

_Because it's a secret I'll take to my grave with me. I promised to tell no one... Not even you._

Kanda wasn't a coward; he would face down his sins, every one of them, and if life demanded that he made repayments for his debts, then that's what he would do. He came back, because he owed the beansprout for reawakening the Fourteenth within him with Mugen, and for his reconciliation with Alma. And if the price for his peace of mind was his freedom, then that's what he would give up. Even if giving _that_ up in exchange for being tied back to the Order with virtually no benefits was a real pain in the ass.

_Alma's last moments belong to me, and me alone. That's proof of the freedom you gave us._

"Rope," Kanda snapped briskly at Johnny, arms trapping the beansprout's smaller body against the back of the chair as he pointedly ignored the heated glares boring into the back of his head. The beansprout was a hazard (especially in view of Johnny's injury – damned Noah had to have slammed his head into the bedpost pretty hard), not least of all to himself. If he thought that Kanda was going to just leave him to his devices though, he was sorely mistaken. Stupid Beansprout was liable to get himself killed one day if he doesn't stop with his deluded attempts to save everyone else from himself. Because not everyone needed saving. Certainly not one Kanda Yuu.

That idiot was going to stay tied up in that chair until he corrected some of his ridiculous assumptions.

Howard goddamn Link, guard dog of Lvellie... Of all places he could have chosen to turn up at. The guy was a complication Kanda hadn't expected, much to his irritation. He would trust the imbecile for now, but the moment the guy stops toeing the line, Kanda would introduce Mugen's reforged blade to his neck.

But when faced with the Apocryphos, remarkably sentient for an Innocence fragment, Kanda found himself backtracking and cursing the CROW's failure to materialise and _help_. The familiar touch of the Innocence burned and twisted in his gut, and all Kanda could remember was blood and pain and dying over and over again as he was forced into synchronisation.

Worst of all, Johnny and the beansprout were still _missing_. Damn.

When he woke up in that abandoned alley to see Timcampy's crushed remains and Theodore's face, the creepy cardinal gone to god knows where, Kanda wondered, not for the first time, just what he had gotten himself into.

Joining the ranks of the Generals... Kanda vaguely remembered himself acquiescing to Theodore's atrocious request, but the fact hasn't truly sunken in yet. For now, that meant that he was free to continue searching for the beansprout, and that's exactly what he would do. Stupid Beansprout had better be grateful for what he's throwing away for him.

It was almost ironic though, to think that he was back at searching for the beansprout – it's almost as if he was destined to spend his entire life in pursuit, whether it was searching for one person or another.

* * *

Even an artificial body running on borrowed time can dream.

Kanda's never talked to anyone about _his_ dreams before – what was the point? – but he's heard plenty enough from Lenalee. Every time something bothers her beyond the usual, she would seek him out at the training grounds and meditate with him. Kanda never understood the rationale behind her actions. He wasn't ever going to lavish care and concern on her the way the rabbit and the beansprout were liable to.

Kanda does listen, contrary to popular belief, even if he seldom looks the part. And from what he's been able to scrounge together, his dreams weren't half as consistent as Lenalee's were. Curious it was, but Kanda has long since lost the capacity for wonder.

Lotus blossoms. Pain. A faceless promise from beyond the fields of death and rebirth. Petals of borrowed time, languishing in an hourglass. Nothing like the empty, broken desolation which haunted Lenalee's dreamscapes in her sleep, not that Kanda knew what _that_ was about anyway.

So many things in this goddamn life to keep track of, nightmares and otherwise, when he'd never even been particularly good at adapting to anything.

But somehow, Kanda thinks, there is comfort to be found in the surreality, fitting enough for an aberration too stubborn to die. All of the still life, false starts, feints in mid-action. Colour leaching out of the skies and the dandelion fields to leave behind only haunting red. Mud at the roots, searching for the farce that was blue sky fondled by cream clouds.

Somewhere off in the distance, clandestine silver pools and retreats, merging into midnight blue to pull it off the abandoned grass tracks, washing into a stagnant pond beneath a rounded cut-out of sky. Vibrant lotus blossoms crouch in silent witness of the ghosts of probing feet, stirring up memories and unwanted remains of the past. Dead and withered petals mark out a spot where one can pay his final respects for skeletons laid out beneath the ground. Echoes provide silent reminders that living did not have to be antonymous to being alive.

It was time to move on.


End file.
